Finsterworld

Finsterworld is a journey through a surreal contemporary Germany, a country that is difficult to reduce to digestible clichés; a mosaic of bizarre stories and humorous dialogues set in permanent sunshine where everybody is beautiful, polite, successful or happy. That is until they reveal their darker side, and we discover that the step from idyll to inferno is a short one. Rarely has German cinema produced so much black humor in one fell swoop.

As the individual storylines develop, we meet: a police officer in a bear costume; a documentary filmmaker who finds it difficult to find an appropriate story; a pedicurist who works in an intricate fashion with his older female patient; a wealthy couple who find it difficult to travel in a German-built car; a snobbish history student whose visit to a concentration camp turns unpleasant; and a wild man training a raven in the woods.

Despite the radiant summer weather that bathes the landscape of Finsterworld all the time, this is a dark fairy tale about the German identity and past.

Frauke Finsterwalder was born in 1975 in Hamburg. After studies in Literature and History in Berlin, she worked at the Maxim-Gorki-Theater, the Volksbühne, and was an editor for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. She then studied Documentary Film Directing at the University of Television and Film Munich. Finsterworld is her feature debut.